


Something Like Perfection

by Twice_Shy (notboldly)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family, Holidays, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 02:02:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5564692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notboldly/pseuds/Twice_Shy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles asked Derek to stand-in for his ex during Christmas with the Stilinski family, he somehow didn't account for the fact that Derek is amazing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Like Perfection

It occurred to Stiles, far too late, that he'd made a terrible mistake.

"Your young man is just lovely, dear," said his grandmother as they cleared the table after Christmas dinner. She looked sweet and apple-cheeked, proud and doting and every day her seventy years; it _wasn't fair_ that the image only made it harder to convince people she was the dastardly matchmaker of Stiles's nightmares. "How long did you say you've been seeing him? A year?" Despite her age, her dark eyes were sharp when she looked at him, a little too much like his own for Stiles to be completely at ease.

Stiles had practiced his entire life for this moment, however, and he managed to force a convincing grin. He was thankful, not for the first time, that nobody in his family had supernatural lie-detecting abilities, although he admitted his grandmother occasionally came close.

"Yeah, about a year. January, I think."

His grandmother nodded, looking pleased at the news as she cleaned scraps of food off her best china. It was the same expression she wore when grinding meat to make homemade sausage, or when interrogating her own son, _the sheriff_ ; for obvious reasons, it didn't comfort Stiles at all.

"That's wonderful," she said, still sounding pleasant and approving. "And he said his name was Eric? Such a nice boy."

Stiles winced, mentally cursing her memory. When he'd called months ago for the usual yearly chat on her birthday, it _had_ been Eric, a fellow junior at Berkley and the man of his realistic-and-very-much-not-unrequited dreams. Or at least that's what Stiles had thought during spring semester; it was a little hard to believe his dream guy would dump him for someone else the week before winter break, leaving him in an unfortunate lurch for the holidays.

In retrospect, Eric had probably not been all that nice.

"Er. No, it's Derek. Derek Hale." Derek, who Stiles now owed a very large Christmas present, and who would most likely tease him until the end of time, if not make him feel small and pathetic for asking in the first place. Derek definitely wouldn't mean to, but…well, it _was_ pathetic to ask your crush to be your pretend holiday date because your actual boyfriend had dumped you. Yet for some reason, it had seemed like such a good idea a week ago.

"I could've sworn…Well, never mind. My memory must be slipping." His grandmother pursed her lips and shook her head, continuing to scrape food from the plates. She seemed deep in thought, never a good sign when he was attempting to wiggle out of a lie, and Stiles hurried to put the leftovers away while he tried to come up with a way to control the damage. A subject change was out, clearly; Stiles's first Christmas date was everyone's favorite subject that evening, probably because Stiles looked—according to his youngest aunt—"just smitten." 

That didn't mean, though, that he didn't _attempt_ to change the subject.

"So…how about Aunt Adley? She still seeing that dentist?"

"Never mind that, dear," his grandmother said, undeterred, and Stiles's shoulders immediately slumped in defeat. "Why don't you go ask Derek if he wants a slice of pie while we watch the parade? He looks like a pecan man."

Stiles had no idea what a pecan man looked like, but the dismissal in the words couldn't have been clearer. His grandmother probably thought she was being nice, giving Stiles an opportunity to spend time with the family and his plus one, but Stiles knew what it really meant for the evening; without a passel of relatives around to distract her, his grandmother would figure out their ruse in minutes.

Stiles had no idea how to stop it. 

"I'll go do that," he said, and with one last push to seal the tupperware on the sweet potato casserole, he left the kitchen and headed to the living room. To his dismay, he found that he didn't even have to turn on the light to navigate the darkened hallway; all he had to do was follow the sounds of laughter, Derek's familiar pitch among them.

The situation, if possible, only seemed worse once he got there. His relatives, twenty in total, were scattered around the room, balanced on various mismatched couches with his younger cousins in piles that spilled out of the arm chairs. Despite the cramped quarters, however, there was one spot still available on Stiles's favorite couch, and that spot happened to be two square feet of space between Derek and his dad. Derek, meanwhile, didn't seem out of place at all. Instead, he was smiling, and laughing, and looking for all the world like he belonged there talking to Stiles's deadbeat uncle and goggling great aunt.

Stiles's heart instantly began to beat faster, and Derek cut off his conversation to spin and look at him with ill-disguised concern. It was highly suspicious, but to Stiles's grinning relatives, it probably just looked like he was besotted, like they were two lovebirds who couldn't even take their eyes off each other. It was the perfect picture of a couple newly in love, and Stiles found himself frozen to the spot for almost a full minute as he struggled to remind himself it wasn't real.

When Stiles did manage to find his voice, the words came out shaky anyway.

"Hey, uh, Derek? Can I speak to you in private for a minute?"

Derek nodded quickly and stood, and Stiles tried his best to ignore his Aunt Adley's cooing sigh at the "sweet gesture." She was suspiciously dentist-less, and Stiles swore to himself that he'd get her back for forcing the focus on him and Derek over her own single state. 

It was something he'd have to take care of later, though; at that moment, he focused on leading Derek to the basement while holding hands as loosely as possible, guiding him to the first available bedroom that was far enough away from curious ears. Then, he focused on putting as much space between them as he possibly could, for his sake alone.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Derek asked, a frown pulling at his brows the instant the door closed behind them. The expression was more familiar than the smiling, friendly mirage of a couple minutes ago, but as reminders went, it didn't help much; after all, Stiles had been in love with Derek (in all his grumpy glory) for years. 

Obviously, that was the source of his problem. In a few minutes, everyone would be expecting Stiles to curl up on the couch next to Derek as a boyfriend, to lean into his broad chest and wrap an arm around his waist, maybe rest a hand on his thigh. He'd be close enough that Derek would be able to hear and smell _everything_ , all the frustrated longing and sadness he'd managed to keep bottled up suddenly wafting from his scent and echoing in his heartbeat. Even if Stiles's grandmother never managed to figure out Stiles's plot and spill the beans to the rest of the Stilinski family, Derek would start looking at him a little differently, holding himself a little further away to spare his _feelings_. Stiles didn't know if he could keep up the boyfriend act knowing that it might cost him Derek's friendship, and even if he could manage that, he doubted he'd be able to live with the reminders that would come up every holiday. His family would never let him forget Derek, that was for certain.

Stiles closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to mitigate it, at least a little. If his voice came out sounding desperate, well, that was no surprise.

"Look. You need to tone it down, okay?"

Silence followed the statement, and when Stiles opened his eyes, all he saw on Derek's face was confusion.

"Tone what down?"

Stiles gestured wildly to Derek, standing there with his perfect beard and wearing the stupid Christmas sweater Cora had bought him. With the tacky colors and cartoon reindeer, Derek almost seemed approachable, _attainable_ , and beyond that thought lay madness.

"The perfect boyfriend act. Seriously, it's a little much."

Derek crossed his arms, his confusion fading into something more guarded.

"I'm not doing anything except what you asked me to do," he said, voice perfectly calm and too level. 

"Yeah, I know, and I appreciate it." Stiles nodded rapidly for emphasis, because honestly, the last thing he needed was Derek storming out of Grandma Stilinski's house in anger. "But, you know, you're the first…anybody I've ever brought home to meet the whole Stilinski clan, and you can't act like you're perfect. You can't, dude, or all of my future dates are just going to find themselves hitting a wall. A big wall labeled 'the one that got away.'"

Derek scowled even harder.

"I'm not pretending to be anything. I like your family. They're interesting." Stiles was about to protest, because not even _Scott_ enjoyed dealing with the extended Stilinski family, but Derek continued. "Besides, it's nice being around a family for Christmas again."

Stiles snapped his mouth shut, well-used to that particular DO NOT ENTER sign hanging over the conversation. He managed to keep silent for a grand total of ten seconds before powering ahead; tragedy or no, Derek needed to understand this.

"Yeah, but _perfect_ , dude. You can't be the favorite, or they'll disown me when we break-up. My dad still might, and he already knows it's fake!" Stiles pretended, very valiantly, that the idea of his dad and Derek getting along didn't fill his stomach with overexcited butterflies. It was beside the point anyway. "God, at least Eric had the decency to be an asshole upfront."

To Stiles's surprise, Derek actually growled lowly in response to that.

"Stiles, they're your family. They'll understand."

"But—"

"Besides," Derek added, sounding strangely bitter, "perfect with your family doesn't mean perfect for _you_."

It was a good point, but Stiles threw up his hands in frustration anyway.

"Yeah, well, stop being both!"

Derek didn't respond, and Stiles realized what he'd said a beat too late. That bit of honesty hadn't been what he'd meant to say, not at all, and he couldn't stop himself from groaning. Dammit, now he'd only ruined things _sooner_.

At least the statement had had the desired effect; Derek no longer looked on the verge of angry. Instead, he looked…blank.

"Did you just…"

Stiles let out a strained laugh, and his gaze shifted to the floor.

"Say something kind of incriminating at the worst possible time? Looks like." Stiles darted a glance at Derek's face, but the blank expression remained. Not a good sign. "Look, can we just…pretend that didn't happen? Forever?"

"Why?"

"Uh, because I got my embarrassing feelings on you?"

"I don't mind."

Stiles rolled his eyes, in part to cover up the way his heart cracked at the words. 

"Thanks, that makes me feel so much better, Derek."

"No. I mean—" Derek made a frustrated sound and ran his fingers through his hair. "I do too. Think you're perfect, for me."

It took Stiles a few seconds to convince himself he'd heard that correctly, but once the words registered, Stiles gaped.

"You—what. Since _when_?"

Derek looked at him like he was an idiot.

"Stiles. I agreed to meet your family, as your boyfriend, wearing a Christmas sweater. I couldn't have been more obvious."

"I thought you were being a good friend!"

"And the kiss under the mistletoe when we got here five hours ago?"

Oh. Right. As kisses went, it had been brief, but it had also been sweet, sincere, and warm. Stiles had thought Derek was simply a good actor. Apparently, Stiles was an idiot.

"I was, uh, trying not to think about that." At those words, Derek's glare returned with ferocity, and Stiles flapped his hands out in defense. "In a good way! It should be really obvious by now that I'm head over heels for you."

"Yeah?"

Stiles nodded, and Derek's expression went soft at that, becoming something tender and halfway between hopeful and shy. No one had ever looked at Stiles like that.

"Well. Me too."

Stiles beamed, and he took a step forward. After that, he just kept moving forward.

Derek met him halfway, one hand already raised to cup his cheek, and Stiles reached out to rest his hands on his waist, mouth already parted. This was it. This was the moment, this was—

"Stiles! Derek! The parade's about to start!"

—the time for his dad to interrupt them, apparently.

Stiles sighed, and his breath mingled with Derek's, which tasted sweet like after dinner mints. His hands clenched reflexively with want, earning him a handful of skin-warmed sweater that he never wanted to let go of. Derek seemed equally reluctant to move away.

"We could say we got lost?" Derek offered, and the explanation was so implausible that Stiles almost wanted to try it.

Instead, he made a face.

"Can't. My grandma wanted to know if you wanted some pecan pie. She will absolutely come down here to check."

Derek sighed and finally took a step back, neatly separating them. It was terrible.

"I love pecan pie."

"Cool." On impulse, Stiles stretched out his hand, and Derek immediately laced their fingers together. A real embrace, this time. "But it's going to have to wait." At Derek's confused look, Stiles smiled. "First, we're going back to that mistletoe, and we're going to make it count."

***

END

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally written for [buckystves](http://buckystves.tumblr.com/) for the [Sterek Secret Santa Exchange](http://stereksecretsanta.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Feedback is very welcome, and I hope you all enjoyed; come visit me on [Tumblr](http://notboldly.tumblr.com) if you want!


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